Thus the court granted the airline's appeal and sent the case to the Moscow Arbitration Court to be reconsidered.
In December 2007, the Federal Tax Service's Moscow inter-district inspection demanded the airline pay sales tax, highway use tax and the tax on housing and social-cultural sphere facility maintenance.
Lufthansa lawyers in their appeal referred to an agreement on air links concluded between the Soviet Union and Germany in 1971 that granted Lufthansa an exemption from paying taxes in Russia, just as Russian flagship air carrier Aeroflot was exempted from paying taxes in Germany.
The tax service argued that the agreement merely exempted the company from paying certain kinds of taxes.
Lufthansa transports about 60 million passengers annually, including more than 1.5 million on its Russian routes.
